New potatoes with roe

Nypotatis med rom

Swedes love roe, so many Swedes will eagerly gobble down 3 or 4 of these potatoes. Roe is widely used both as a garnish and sometimes even as the main ingredient in a starter.

I tend to find most Brits approach roe with caution! Indeed, it will probably be a difficult task persuading many Brits to even try one of these tasty little appetisers. I have therefore worked on the basis that allowing an average of one per person will be ample, although Swedes would probably calculate four per person!

I like to use a couple of different toppings to produce a colour contrast. Try vendace roe if you can find it, but if not you can use lumpfish or herring roe which are more readily available. Alternatively try sillrom or tångkorn, both of which are available in IKEA. Tångkorn (above) looks a bit like black roe, but is actually made from seaweed, and so is a good alternative for vegetarians. John Duxbury

Summary

Tips

• These keep fairly well and so they can be prepared a couple of hours in advance and covered in cling film.

• Should you scrape the potatoes? I think there is a simple test to decide: if the potatoes scrape easily then scrape them, if not don’t bother!

• As people normally eat these with their fingers, new potatoes that don’t need scraping are probably a better choice.

Ingredients

8

small/medium new potatoes

120 ml

(½ cup)

crème fraiche

50 g

(2 oz)

vendace roe, lumfish, herring roe or tångkorn or a mixture

15 g

(½ oz)

chives

Method

1. Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until just cooked, allowing approximately 8 to 12 minutes.

2. Once the potatoes are cool, cut them in half and place them on a serving plate.

3. Finely chop half of the chives and mix with the crème fraiche. Spoon a small dollop on the top of each potato half, followed by a teaspoon of roe. Garnish with short lengths of the remaining chives.

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